2020-07-21 PPS School Board Special Meeting

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District Portland Public Schools
Date 2020-07-21
Time 19:30:00
Venue Virtual/Online
Meeting Type special
Directors Present missing
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Event 1: PPS Board of Education Special Meeting 7/21/2020

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being streamed live on channel 28 and will be replayed throughout the next two weeks please check the district website for replay times this meeting is also being streamed live on our pps tv services website thank you to everybody for joining in tonight welcome to tonight's special meeting voters may be asked to consider a 2020 school bond renewal that would maintain the current tax rate and continue investments in our schools last week the pps board of education reviewed the results of the community engagement we landed on a draft option that most closely resembles the earlier proposed option three with adjustments in some key areas including increased investments in curriculum seismic improvements and a category for capacity and enrollment we approved a bond package that would form a basis for a referral referral to the voters however there is a desire to further explore increasing the ada funding in the proposed 2020 bond option tonight we have an opportunity to consider how much funding will be included in the 2020 bond to support ada improvements and accessibility we are also considering some additional funds to the capacity line item to begin the work of addressing the predicted increasing enrollment at roosevelt high school after hearing tonight from the staff we will take a voice vote on what will serve as the basis for the bond referral package we will be voting on next week on the 28th superintendent guerrero would you like to share your thoughts good evening chair yes thank you and good evening directors and our listening audience um i think we've been saying this along the journey here uh we've always understood that arriving at a final recommended bond package for referral that this this would be an iterative process uh so we've again appreciated um this latest opportunity this past week to continue reflecting on the conversations from the board's last meeting and continue scrutinizing and further refining our estimates and sort of the programmatic objectives to maximize these potential resources supporting our core mission so earlier today directors received a staff recommendation based on yet a deeper level of analysis which includes a few changes to ada facility design some formula adjustments to the way we calculated contingency so the proposal in front of you for your consideration this evening includes a few things i just want to call out a little bit more specifically there were there was a key question asked in in the board's last discussion around the scope and capacity and ability of the organization to embark on some much needed and long overdue uh ada accessibility work um and so there was there's been a description around the kinds of options and there was some deliberation about do we create a singular pathway where a student could attend elementary middle and high and be able to access the building or should we try to be more aggressive about making sure any school that a student a family member a relative a visitor can actually access as an option at a minimum the main levels of any one of our buildings and so there's been some further thinking and there was an initial estimate proposed to the board but you're going to hear in a little bit greater detail about how we think that if the board would like to add in those additional costs to get at that preferred and more ideal option of main level accessibility in a previous discussion the board also in talking about accessibility of our facilities also decided to roll into a broader sort of omnibus line item supporting making sure that our buildings are not just accessible but supportive of our special needs students to encourage the inclusive practices we really want to be moving towards as an organization as a school system for our students and foreign educators and so there was some initial description about funds going to an emerging a plan that would need to be developed i would say ideally with some consultation or expertise in universal design because there's so much overlap here
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with both modernization and accessibility work but that we really think about what what are the unique equipment and classroom modifications for students with disabilities uh who attend uh specific programs uh focused classrooms but how do we also make sure that this other spaces within our school buildings are also accessible uh and encourage inclusive practices we also know that we have 82 focused classrooms they may not stay in the exact same classrooms over time and so how do we create adaptable flexible learning spaces that meet the needs of uh and not in all cases uh disability but students who need those kinds of classroom modifications so i just wanted to elaborate a little bit on uh what we would propose that that fund would would support um also as as staff uh reflected with directors around um reflecting on this overall package uh as we put a a final polish on it is there is there anything that um we have we've been receiving feedback or input over time that um we're not addressing here uh and and one of those areas that stands out and commending the advocacy here is roosevelt high school we believe it's important to also integrate and signal to the community that we're serious about making sure we're prepared to add the capacity uh to match the ed spec uh the roosevelt high school um yet hasn't realized and so uh we're also proposing resources in there to engage in that design uh and planning with the school community so that that's the second area uh and then third how do we arrive at these additions and not further substantively inflate the overall bond package uh and we we we caught a few areas uh where where uh which actually permits us to to add in those areas so one is removing the program contingency costs that were originally included in curriculum and technology related work so when you look at the proposed technology scope of work it already had contingency built into it but then we counted it again with the overall uh program contingency and so uh we're more we're being more specific now about saying these are facilities related uh contingency line item uh because tech already has it built into its budget curriculum on the other hand will just move forward with a scope of work that stays within that number uh and won't have a similar contingency so it'll it'll it'll proceed within its own program budget um so so those are those are a couple of areas i i wanted to point out uh including that formula recalculation which initially stayed at 109 and a half million in contingency that actually dropped to 93.3 that actually conveniently is 16 million dollars which if the board directs uh speaks for moving from a a pathway of accessibility to main level accessibility of work so those are a few highlights uh certainly we have staff on the line here who can elaborate further uh if i wasn't clear in any one of these areas or the memos didn't offer uh enough description but i think we're we're getting closer to uh we think a well-balanced uh package that speaks to many important priority areas so i'd like to ask our chief operating officer dan young to walk us through uh the staff recommendation and this latest draft of the proposed 2020 bond package dan uh thank you superintendent and good evening directors uh yeah i think that that was a pretty thorough uh overview uh as far as uh comparing the bond option that we looked at last week and what we have before you you should have a few documents uh in your possession tonight uh one is an update of the option that we are recommending that's the the document that's got the blue table on it there's also a bond comparison document and that shows the option that we looked at last week uh the direction that was provided during our board meeting last week and then in blue is the option that we are recommending tonight and it shows the deltas between those those different options and i believe the superintendent hit on all of those deltas as you walk through his overview
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and then the last document you have is a memo on the ada transition plan and that nexus to the ada options that are in the bond so i want to talk just briefly about the ada transition plan it came up a little bit last week i thought it might be worthwhile to talk a little bit more about process just to make sure we're on the same page the district originally dropped an ada transition plan back in 1994 and has not updated it since so we have been in the process of updating the ada transition plan currently we are soliciting public feedback on five uh potential priority options when we first began developing potential bond options uh we aligned those options with uh the priorities that were in the draft ada plan and at that time staff thought conventional wisdom was that the priority that might come out of the final plan would be the option that had fully accessible each school configuration in each cluster as we've continued to develop over the last few months and we've gotten some additional feedback uh it appears uh what her best thinking is that the most likely option would be the one that the superintendent noted about main access to all buildings district-wide and so the option that is recommended tonight is that main option but to be clear the ada transition plan will be finalized later this year and staff will recommend that the funding that we have for ada will to will align with that transition plan so effectively what we are doing now identifying the funding that will support the ultimate ada transition so with that myself and there's other staff here are happy to take questions hi i don't know if it's echoing for others but superintendent i just want to say thank you to you and your team for um really digesting the conversation that we had last week and going back to the drawing board a bit to see um how we can further refine the package it's been a fairly quick process and dan your team thank you so much for all the work you've done in developing new options um i think you heard um from the discussion last week that we wanted to revisit the the money that's allocated not just for the physical accessibility improvements under the ada line item but to also create more flexibility in the funds that we're designating for our special education person excuse me our special education students and make sure that that's really aligned with our um our social justice framework and um really in in service to what the superintendent was talking about before in terms of our inclusive vision for education so um i really uh commend you and your team for going back and figuring out a way that we can um uh come up with a package that um it speaks to those values so thank you very much for that so i want to just give us all a chance to share some initial responses just like director constant did and i thought maybe we could just go kind of through the list um alphabetically and after constant comes the lowry so i i think um one thing i just wanted to say is i appreciate the inclusion of roosevelt um because i know that's been a conversation we've been having as well and that you know i think all of us feel like if we could just keep adding more money to the bond we would because there are so many things we would we know are needed in our district um but we have to be responsible and so i think the weighing of all of this has been really helpful and that we can continue to have these conversations um so rita is next director moore do you have any initial thoughts you're still muted it seems like you're having some technical issues so we'll go ahead and uh move on to director scott great um thank you yeah um no i really appreciate staff's work over this last week um sort of sort of refining this a little bit and you know maybe i have a couple of questions and um maybe these are for staff i know we also have some community stakeholders uh who have joined us as well um i've spent some time over this last week um uh trying to get a little bit more up
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to speed on some of these issues and one of the things um that was um that was interesting in our conversation last week was this policy decision that as a district we you know we need to make and ultimately i think we're all in agreement that we want all of our schools 100 of our schools to be fully accessible to 100 of our students so i mean that that is where we're headed but but recognizing it will take a very long time to get there um but the idea of whether it's it's sort of better to make one school fully accessible in each sort of level at each cluster or to make the main level accessible again with some you know other things as well but you know at each one of our schools to me was was was an an interesting and complex policy question and and and again as someone who hasn't you know sort of delved into this and i haven't heard from the community on this i'm i'm curious from staff's perspective and then also if we have community stakeholders who might want to weigh in on this issue um in terms of those approaches because i can make an argument that certainly um having kids be able to go to their neighborhood school is great but i also find it a little troubling going to the neighborhood school but only kind of halfway right and having having halfway access but not at full access versus having complete access to an entire school on the other hand complete access to an entire school that is not their neighborhood school might not be the best option either and so again you could make an argument on both sides of these and i'd really like to hear from others um in terms of the the right approach um moving forward so we'll um let each of the directors speak and come back uh i just want to be clear i started the alphabet with k and i'll come back around to bailey and depos and branch so because amy started i thought we'd just continue on from where we were so the next one is student representative shu do you have any initial thoughts to share with us tonight nathaniel i can't hear you it looks like you're unmuted i still can't hear nathaniel uh roseanne um maybe if you could send out the phone numbers to both nathaniel and director moore so that they could call in um all right so we're swinging back up to the top of the alphabet while we work out those technical issues director bailey did you have any thoughts director bailey are you out there somewhere in internet land wow this is a super fun first meeting for me haley i promise we're not that we're not hazing you although it might feel like it right now it's totally so i'm going to talk about fine and figure out what's going on and then we're going to move to director from edwards [Music] i'm not sure um good evening everybody i'm not sure we're going to do this because before i have i have some thoughts but i'd actually like to ask some questions first so i'm happy to finish going through the alphabet of people giving their initial thoughts because i have some questions and then when we get to the motion i'll share my my thoughts why don't you go ahead and ask your if you if you wouldn't mind director medwards asking your questions and then when we get finished going through all of us staff can respond to them so there may be some some follow-ups because some of them are just um can i can i just have them answered real time yeah well if that's what you want to do we'll go ahead and we'll move on to um michelle that's fine great so um yeah i my initial thoughts are i remember when the ada was passed i think it was in 1987 or 1988 um when i was in design school and have learned more about it since i am of course fully supportive of making all of our buildings accessible not just because i think that all public buildings should be accessible but because we have uh members of the disability community that are um that will benefit from our investments um i i think it's a i mean that is andrew um director scott talked about this policy decision and it's not as easy as it seems um what we're weighing but i mean just philosophically i'm fully in support of um putting the investments in all of our buildings i would be happy to see an updated uh 19 the plan that was
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developed in 1994 um and i'd like to see an update of that when it comes out when staff is able to get to that thank you that's a great um point director devos that we want to see that as a board um so director bailey texted me and said that his question was about ada single floor accessibility challenges at middle schools um director bailey are you there at all so he's listening to us but he can't hear he cannot speak and then director moore are you able to speak can you hear me yes okay so overall i think this is um an extremely good package um i think it's well balanced um i think it is pretty remarkably responsive to a lot of the highest needs that have been identified the you know the the immediate needs that [Music] we really need to address urgently in a lot of cases um i'm glad to see that we're investing in curriculum i think that's going to make a big difference to students in every school um so some of the some of the other investments that we're going to be making um will not touch every school but the curriculum will and i think that's it's a long overdue investment and it will enable the district finally to get back in sync with the state's materials adoption schedule and and also for the district to develop its some of the special curricula that have been identified um especially the culturally responsive curricula and the climate justice curriculum so i'm glad we were able to do that um i'm i'm glad a little surprised and glad that we've been able to expand the ada um so that it will potentially um cover the entire district um for this for this level of um you know kind of basic accessibility um i'm i'm glad that we're making investments in um upping our game in seismic resiliency um and i hope we can continue to do that moving forward and i'm grateful that we are going to be investing in planning and design work for roosevelt's expansion because expectation is at least in this community that enrollment will continue to grow at roosevelt and we need we're going to need the additional space within three or four three four five years depending on how enrollment growth goes um so we're we're now signaling to the roosevelt community that the expansion will happen and that will enable roosevelt high school to be to have a student capacity that matches the capacity of every other high school in the city in the district so thank you for that and i'm very much looking forward to the process um the public process that's going to be developing a vision for the center for black student excellence it's a very exciting opportunity that i think could be a real game changer for for african american students for that part of the city and for the district in meeting its equity goals so i am overall very impressed with um the package that that we've managed to develop thanks student representative shu are you able to share your thoughts with us uh yeah can you hear me yes but a yes okay great um yeah so um i share many of the um thoughts of director more i am glad that
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roosevelt has been included that we can um begin to work toward a um um yeah sorry um and give me a second i lost the a full 1700 student high school what a full 1700 student comprehensive high school just like everybody else yes that's the one no i'm sorry i was looking for a file i lost um yes um also i think that um the addition of the ada increase in funds would be good um as to the question of um whether it is better to have um a one a full one school per cluster with full accessibility or ground level high or ground level at each school i think that that's i don't know really a question that um ought to be asked to the community especially and students and i'm just wondering if we have any engagement um stats on that um that's just open-ended question i guess um what does this look like if they exist and all right thank you student representative shu um what we're gonna do now is we are going to make a motion to consider this uh recommendation this proposed bomb package that's before us once that has been moved and seconded we'll hear from public comment and we have a lot of um folks that are engaged in the community that can maybe answer some of those questions we had and then before we vote we'll have another opportunity as board members to come and ask some of those questions i i need a motion to approve this package tonight yes we have angela jarvis holland welcome um we're glad you're here tonight to be able to give some testimony and um normally we allow three minutes um but as we as is our practice we allow you the time to finish your thought there so um thank you for being here and for speaking to this angela are you here i am yes okay we're ready whenever you are have you unmuted me i did yeah okay so i was saying um this is an incredibly complex time that we're in and the conversations the board's addressing are pretty complex but they're also for my activist self i think they're pretty exciting conversations and i think we're glad of the city that we live in and that we're thinking about equity in a really deep intersectional way in these conversations um i wanted to say that sometimes what can be frustrating for our community is there are laws like ada and idea which is the individuals with its around education of people and least restrictive environments and we ask you to opine on things that sometimes are already laws that have had an incredible amount of input thought and subtlety and i think i would say that sometimes i'm going to ask people to not fall back on the let's get a whole lot more public input for civil rights and human rights and equity issues that are 30 years overdue hearing that it's i mean i don't need to hear that it was 1994 i've been doing the same advocacy for about 14 years now and i sent a powerpoint to a couple of people the issues still need addressing and the intersection with race is really interesting to me too so to answer some of the things that were brought forward i would say that we in our minds because we're not brought up with people with disabilities we think about being kind and putting really nice things in nice classrooms for those people those people belong in all of our schools all of our classrooms and if you had access to a first floor and you had accessible software and we finally have curriculum which also can be accessible and differentiated then many of the issues about why we need to go to a special place
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are already addressed there are incredible skills in special ed but they don't have to live in a room they can be they can come and greet and meet and be with people and do their work and inspire gen ed so i am um i'm saying to you that you don't need to think that just having access on one floor means that people can't have access to things that they need to be successful research shows that being with typical peers and being in their community is really one of the most powerful things we can do for folks some time ago maria was going to be on this call but her daughter had a surgery she'd addressed the board and there'd been advocacy from a parent whose son has autism and had been at a school that did not respond culturally at all to their child and their child had been bullied they chose their local school where two siblings went where people spoke spanish where they could volunteer and that child is now thriving it's easy for somebody else without a child with a disability to tell us that one in four schools is great we just want the same rights and i think that that's what guadalupe i really appreciated your words tonight it was very encouraging to me i think that idea and ada it would be good for the board members to know a little more about those because until i had daniel in my life and did the work i do which i represent 5 000 families i didn't really understand some of these issues and hearing that we're going to be thinking about universal design thinking about improving technology there's so much portable support for inclusion and race and social justice are totally intertwined we have many children of color that are put into more restrictive placements and this will be a way that we're addressing equity for them and improving outcomes we shouldn't have to put our civil rights up for public input or a popularity vote we need an action step we need to know that in four years these classrooms will be accessible because you've broken the faith with our community about seven different times since i've been involved and we're ready for real change but we're also not claiming it for one group i want to show you my visual aid because i like visual aids so i don't know if you can see this that's my son daniel and the young man with him moved he wasn't he came from eastern europe and didn't speak english he bonded by sharing the computer and the software that daniel had to allow him to do work and the quote says we cannot seek achievement for ourselves our ambitions must be broad enough to include the aspirations and needs of others for their sake and for our own cesar chavez i stand with black lives matters i stand with the initiatives around race and i stand for human dignity and i believe that's what this board stands for and it's definitely what i understand guadalupe to stand for so we're ready to get behind this if we hear those assurances we need to not have a long drawn out process while you decide whether you're going to approve our civil rights we just need to move now and move quickly and then i'll be all over being an ambassador for this bond because we need it we need it desperately thank you very much for your time um this is director de pass i i wanted to thank miss jarvis holland for her testimony and that was moving and and it's truthful um i wanted to remind us that um the disability community intersects with other isms with absolutely lgbtq and with race in a way that we see you know out in the community at large and also wanted to encourage us to engage with um the members that that served the city of portland on the disability commission uh that was convened by the office of equity and human rights these are strong activists that are of intersecting identities and would be a strong voice for helping us guide this work and inform this work thank you director deposit and i know that you spoke with several of those uh folks this week um so i uh i think we now have a time to discuss the motion that is before us and i know director bram edwards that you had some questions that you wanted to ask of staff right there uh thank you thank you um and i'm sure the staff but i just want to clarify that the total ada number for improvements to have our district fully accessible is about 100 100 million that is correct i think it's a little
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over 100 million yes great and then i just had a question about the ada transition plan process um because this was a much debated topic um prior to the referral of the 2017 bond so just so that um now that we're in a thank goodness a regular pattern of improving bonds um sort of what the cycle is and i'm assuming that 1994 plan was planned in anticipation of the 1995 bond i know you weren't there at the time i'm assuming the timing that that plan laid some of the groundworks i know a lot of there were a lot of investments in 95. and then just a clarification so we had one pass 94 before the 95 bond and then we didn't have another bond until 2012. we had a 2012 and then 2017. is it that we the plan from 94 was had a durability that we did we didn't do it or it wasn't required by law i'm just thinking as we get into this cycle of of bonds and improvements and when i look at the 100 million i actually did and considering we're going to do a 1.2 billion dollar bond it's actually not that much so i'm interested in the iteration of is the normal cycle we do it to plan for the bond or is there a legal requirement or you should share your thinking is that it would be great that we next spawn cycle get um sounds like we're gonna be catching up this one but for the next one that it really wouldn't go into work at this start yeah that that's a great question and i'll have to double check uh as far as uh once we adopt the update if there's going to be another legal trigger at some point in time i think the overall intention here is that the ada transition plan will be adopted later this year will dovetail with our long-range facilities plan which was adopted in 2012 and that's required to be updated every 10 years we're starting that process we've already started that process and we look to have that completed in 2021 and then when we're looking for there's these sequence of bonds those are two documents that i think that we will look at for guidance uh but also we will look at when we're bond planning is if they're still current and if they're not still current on what the best uh thinking is then we would need to update them particularly the ada transition plan or other capital planning documents and then just one last follow-up so um based on the the proposed proposal tonight uh which is about 33 million if that is a 100 million the size of roughly the district to get our all of our buildings in the district um accessible in theory we'd have about 65 million dollars in perfect 65 million to finish making our buildings accessible and i know that doesn't count for free and a lot of a lot of other things that are also needed but that would yeah based upon our current estimates and looking at that far you know they're definitely estimates they'll definitely change but yeah i think that's a fair assessment and also worthwhile to know the ada transition plan doesn't just note what that current increment is or what those current priority priorities are but it really is to show the full transition from where we are to full compliance district-wide uh but the way you're thinking is logical so just two last questions um was one of the options of the ada transition plan community meetings full accessibility i'm sorry i didn't hear that very well can you repeat that the option so um it's been presented that one of the options was you know one building or one school at each level per cluster would be accessible another was the main floors um i was wondering if one of the options was we're going to fully complete all the accessibility yeah that's a good question and i'll i'll let john lyons our senior program managers on here correct me if i say anything inaccurate um the the overall plan is to is to move the district to full compliance district-wide what the there's five priority options that are in the draft plan and those are the ones that we are receiving feedback on in the community engagement right now and what those uh are meant to show is where do we start not where we finish but where do we start so what is that first increment uh and what are those first priorities certainly there's more detail once
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that's identified here's what our first priorities are more detail being specifically what schools are those what is the sequence um but there there's always that question of where do you prioritize your your first work into early work great um and then just my thank you very much i think that's really helpful especially um going forward completing the plan because i think this is a pretty good down payment um but more needs to be done um this so just to clarify that the change from the other night to what's being proposed is the 16 million would ensure that every school building's main floor would be accessible within the four years of the run yeah good question um you're right on the scope the scope is main floor accessibility district wide and certainly there's there's some new ones to that are schools that have very small first floors and instantly have uh stairs um you know we'll need to those will need to have some special attention uh and right now uh based for budgeting purposes we assumed five years uh we definitely need to spend some more time digging into that uh but that's the that's the schedule that we've used to estimate our management cost okay five years 16 million should the asterisk of our we have lots of different buildings yeah that's our best thinking now great thank you appreciate you answering my questions chair lowry with your permission there was an outstanding question by director bailey on the same topic of ada and since we have mr john lyons here uh maybe we hear a word from him we certainly enjoyed hearing from him late the other evening but if he could clarify this question of uh main level accessibility is is a big leap forward and a lot don't do but in the middle grades or in a comprehensive middle school you know what what are some factors that we're going to need to think about moving forward and i know i know that they're described in the document but i think for the public's benefit it would be important to hear mr lyons describe it john mr lyons you're still muted can we it looks like he's still muted is there a way to unmute him every time i hit a mute somebody rebates themselves yes i'm hitting unmute and it doesn't seem to be working can you try to unmake this again maybe while we're waiting i have a question about the first floor accessibility great um so we talked about entrances um what about does that accessibility include restrooms other common areas that will be on the first floor what would the scope of work be for accessibility on a first floor besides exits and entrances this is dan i'll speak for john john's definitely the expert but short version of is yes it's really making everything on the first floor accessible so the only barrier at that point so that's that's from outside into the building uh making all spaces uh virtually all spaces there might be some exceptions uh accessible and then the barriers really are uh once this phase is completed is the multi-stories i know that director constant had a question and i saw director scott unmute and lean forward which i'm taking to be body language for he had a question so let's take uh director constand first and then director scott i just wanted to quickly go back to the conversation about how much work do we have left to fulfill our our promise as far as full accessibility and just a plug for the fact that just like with our seismic work and with all of our health and safety work the best way to get there is full modernization of our buildings so to think that you know we'll have our high school portfolio completely accessible for all of our students and then um just as quickly as we can get to the rest of the buildings in our portfolio for modernization that that reduces our need for retrofits specifically in service to accessibility
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director scott do you have a comment um you know it's really a quick comment i just i wanted to thank um ms jarvis holland for her testimony tonight this is exactly what i needed to hear um in terms of the right approach forward and and you know it's a little it's it's frustrating for me we weren't able to get that earlier and so my apologies to you um you know as the chair of the bond committee that we weren't able to incorporate that into our planning process and and because it came up late we are scrambling a little bit um it does sound like um this is this is the right approach forward and you know i mean the the ada was adopted in 1990 when i was a portland public schools student um and it is frustrating for me that so many boards and so much time you know in the 90s and early 2000s and later you know have failed to take action so i am i'm glad that we're able to include something and i think what staff have brought forward um is a good plan and i really appreciate your testimony tonight um um you know letting us know that that this is the right approach and and i'm gonna concur with other board members who have talked about um the down payment right and and looking forward you know one of the things we've talked about for a decade now is completing the high schools i like chair constance when she just made about monetizations you know bring things up up to code in a in a really comprehensive way but we need to look look to this bond um this one that we're adopting and then the one four years from now and and sort of say okay what's going to be that next step that we're going to take and and i really look forward to working with you and others in the community to figure out what that's going to be so thank you for being here tonight sorry and chair lowry did i say chair constant boy it's it's a yes anyway it's a tough transition amy did such a great job uh scaring us for so long i can see why that happened uh student representative do you have any further questions that you wanted to add in uh yeah i just had a uh follow up on um jekyll constance point about modernization um about the high school is it well isn't the high schools that are considered to have been modernized all fully accessible including like elevators and uh what is the status in the other two high schools that have not been and are not in on this current package um specifically wilson and cleveland so i saw john vigorously shaking his head yes to the question about those high schools that have been redone are fully uh accessible is that correct john that is 100 percent correct you can hear me then that's great uh then regarding uh the other two high schools wilson and cleveland um i will call them largely accessible um they do have some improvements necessary uh wilson if i remember correctly is about three hundred thousand dollars cleveland is about four hundred thousand dollars but both have elevators uh both have all levels accessible um both have accessible restrooms at all levels john since we got you on the line could you speak to the specifics around director bailey's question of are middle schoolers and what main level accessibility might mean in the way of programmatic access in a building absolutely um so just to frame the issue a little bit more concretely we have about 30 schools where we have multi-level instructional programming and no elevator so those are really our problem areas looking at just the middle schools within that set it's about four schools and i share the concern that those are going to be the most problematic to adjust programming to accommodate main level accessibility so what what i'm going to do is reach out to administrators at these schools and invite them to the forthcoming ada transition plan community meetings to get their thoughts on on what administratively that would mean for them how complicated would it be to program an entire eighth grade curriculum on the main level director bailey has let me know that he can hear us um director bailey if you could text me and let me know if that satisfied your question or if you have any follow-up that'd be great um is there any other comment or questions from the board chair lowry i have a couple of other comments and brass tacks dan are you able to put the um revised option up on the screen
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easily um let me see or ask cara or roseanne are you able to present it's it's not essential but um i wanted to just revisit a conversation that we had um last week where i believe i was the source of something that i'm going to identify now as an error or at least a misstep so we combined the line items for accessibility investment and also what had been previously earmarked as the focus classrooms and what we agreed upon was to characterize that line item for the focused classrooms yay thank you very much as being more flexible in service to special education investments and i'd like the board to consider actually disaggregating those two line items again because i think it's important as a point of accountability as we track the bond and we track the bond spending to see those categories as different so i definitely would like to strike the word classrooms because we want to move away from that notion of segregated classrooms and focus more on special education's special education investments in service to integration and inclusiveness for all of our school communities and so those numbers i believe are 32 million for accessibility and [Music] 15.2 for the investments in special education services and i i think um i think it would behoove us to to track those separately um and we can i want to i want to elicit some more discussion on that and then you know the just the other point i wanted to say in terms of um the superintendent leading things off with a little more detail around his vision for inclusive education is that we actually see that embedded in a couple of other items here and line items here so for example our curriculum which includes you know thinking holistically about our mtss strategies our curriculum includes i think some thoughtful deliberation by staff about how to serve all students so that doesn't exclude our special education students and what they need and likewise for technology i know that um there is an allocation within that technology budget um within the i think it's 5.8 million dollars for pre-k 2 um and assisted that provides for assistive technology so that's embedded in those technology numbers so i just i just kind of wanted to bring the conversation back full circle and say that just because we're talking about these particular investments for our our special education students it doesn't mean that we're not also considering the needs of those students in the other ways that we're looking at the other items in this bond so again just interested in what people think about disaggregating those two items and i um i feel i feel pretty strongly about striking the word classroom um from that line item uh three so director constant uh what i'm understanding you to say is that you know you advocated last week for the sort of these being brought together and that was sort of a an error and you want to take them apart again but change it to special education investments and then have ada separate so then putting ada back under health and safety and then um education improvements would have the special education investments is that correct yes and that um that uh realization came through a lot of conversations that i had this week with the community um about about uh just accountability on our spending in these areas and um i i came to see i came to see their point of view i think you know one of the things i know about you is that you're very responsive to the community and you're always trying to listen and improve and um i know that you came from a place of trying to serve the community and now you've learned more so we we improve um so i think because this is we've moved this uh to be under consideration this draft i think what needs to happen is that you need to make an amendment to um change that to special education investments and then move the ada accessibility as a separate line item and then we can move and second that and then discuss it so would you like to make a motion to
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that effect i would so moved as director lowry just discussed and i believe dan correct me if i'm wrong i believe that the dollar figures attached there are 32 million million for the ada accessibility and 15.2 for uh special education investments they're uh they're close they're a little uh off from that the special ed uh is 13.4 and the ada is 33.8 um those numbers you can see on on the other document which was the bond options comparison yes so the motion is that 33.82 ada and 13.4 to the special education investments do we have a second for director konstam's motion second it thank you thank you director deposit is there any michelle is it to pass or depass i hear people say it differently and i need to ask you you know that's funny people probably say it wrong all the time i'm so used to it it's deepass do you pass if you want to be culturally appropriate they bus they pass okay we can do um the director depos seconded and then um is there any discussion on this amendment um this is rita um i'm i'm a little uncomfortable making um a whole series of last-minute changes um i i think since we're we're not uh we're not changing the actual amounts of money that are involved here and reverting back to the previous iteration of this um [Music] i i think it's i think it's okay um it does make me a little uncomfortable that um we're we're kind of questioning staff expertise from the dais um but i i'm i'm okay with going back to the original version of this with the amendments as made it's the original staff expertise is one way to think about it any other comments before we vote on the amendment all right uh the amendment before us is to um uh sure comes our chair i did it too cheerful stamp uh director constance uh amendment is before us all in favor please vote by saying yes yes yes yes yes well opposed but please vote by saying no any abstentions student representative shu how do you vote uh yeah all right it uh scott bailey texted me yes i don't know if you can see that i don't know if that counts liz uh if he texts me um so can you liz can you let us know if uh a text vote is the motion passes and the motion passes he can hear us and he has registered his vote uncomfortable yes okay so the motion passes um with uh eight to zero all right uh definitely seven to zero okay uh with the student representative voting yes all right thank you liz for that clarification and correction um is there any further discussion on the main motion of passing um this uh revised bond renewal to be clear we're not referring it yet we're going to refer it on the 28th you have some comments i'd like to make um great so not that i wanted to spend my free tuesday um in another board meeting but i want to say i'm really glad that we had tonight's meeting because i think we are going to leave this meeting with a much stronger package um that we're going to take the voters that includes all of our students and i want to thank the school improvement chair um andrew scott and all the staff who spent lots of time moving the
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package to the place we were last tuesday night i think we had it we had a really strong foundation um i was disappointed that the additional funds um for the ada accessibility weren't added at the last coordinating um but the beauty of um an iterative process and flexibility and nimbleness is that we can continue to refine and perfect i think that's what um we're doing here tonight um so uh i know we didn't have a lot of time in the beginning of the night it was late uh when the issue got brought up so i um i say i was disappointed but i'm appreciative that staff went back and um built out a proposal that does include a greater degree of access at all of our schools and i also want to just especially thank angela jarvis holland and other parents who after the meeting was over said not enough we want to be with you but it's not enough and you know i think sometimes um you know we get we have invested a lot of time in something and we're we're so close um and i think tonight's action's just going to get us a little bit closer to a really strong package that we all will feel proud of taking to voters i want to recognize that this is a substantial investment but when i look at the overall number um 66 million that's remains um i think about um that's in the overall scope of things um not that uh much money so i i hope we keep pressing forward um you know when i was thinking uh last at the end of last week that we were going to be heading to next week to vote on the final package um did we lose amy okay um after the board meeting i felt like we were just missing this one piece that really would have sort of filled a gap in our being able to make the case um because there are so many things in this bond that i do think make the case that this is a commitment and a major investment in our racial equity and social justice priorities and i think tonight's recommendation gets us one step closer to having something that we can take to the community um that really reflects i think our priorities our values and how we want to set this district up at least the physical plant the district up to better serve all of our students so i want to thank the staff and the board members for you know willing to come back on another on a tuesday night and consider this because i think we've got a great package to take to our community and also to better serve our students and the other discussion before we move to a vote uh this is director constant i'm sorry about that if you were looking for me not just my wife i went out but all my power went out um so i'm sorry i didn't have an opportunity to vote on that amendment but thank you everybody for your support i understand and um i just uh i just want to echo what julia said that i feel like this package really represents sort of the whole process we've been through over the last year in terms of um defining our values as a district around equity and social justice and that feels really good uh to have the investments in jefferson to have the investments in the center for black student excellence and all of the um improvements that that will mean for the schools in that cluster and then to have a good down payment on making progress for our students with special needs i want to commend the leadership team of the district because i think this is all very directly related to the process that we've been through around building our board goals and building our vision as a district what we want to see for our graduates and building our strategic plan
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so this this bond package feels to me a very positive reflection of the mission that we've stated and the opportunity that we've had to to really express our values as a district all right it looks like we are ready to vote um so i'm going to we're going to do a voice vote and we will go in alphabetical order um we will start with um director bailey who has texted me yes uh director broome edwards yes director depos yes director constance yes director lowry yes director moore yes director scott yes and student representative shu yes all right uh it passes seven to zero with student representative shu voting yes i do think we might need to amend the vote from the amendment liz i'm not sure since amy didn't get a chance to vote but she did later indicate that she would have voted yes um so i'll leave that up to you and cara on the minutes we'll sort it out i would love i would love an opportunity to be lately vote yes i think we can i think we can accommodate that excellent all right well despite a little bit of a bumpy start with some of our technology and uh connectivity issues uh we have managed to make it through um so superintendent guerrero will you please prepare a resolution and filing paperwork to refer this bond package in the proper format for the july 28 board meeting sarah lowry administration would be very pleased to draft a resolution um that reflects the intent and the spirit of this conversation we'll make sure to polish up the language that it reflects tonight's discussion but as directors have already stated i think uh the prospect of what we're proposing um it's on so many areas that our community uh and our students uh well deserve so so thank you for for getting it to this point uh i'm having a deja vu to the sia investment package feeling like that was well-rounded i feel similarly here so thank you for all the hard work and discussion that has gone into getting it to this point thank you all right and with that our meeting is adjourned 48 minutes early um i don't know that we can make that uh every time that uh we have a meeting together with me as chair but uh let's try as long as we're able to do such good and efficient work as we've done tonight so thank you everybody for your time this meeting is now adjourned and our next meeting of the board will be held july 28th thank you


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